Ripley's Believe It or Not by Ripley’s Believe It or Not! for August 07, 2015
August 06, 2015
August 08, 2015
Transcript:
With over 26,000 possible outcomes, you could play one game of tic-tac-toe every day for 70 years and see a different outcome each time! As part of an official government program, drunks in Berlin, Germany, will soon be silently chastised by mimes acting out the consequences of overindulging! Simon Fraser University biologist Regine Gries has created a bedbug repellent thanks to her 5000 creepy crawley test subjects- who feast on her own blood!
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That’s ridiculous. A Tic-Tac-Toe board could have up to 512 outcomes, 2 raised to 9, two possible states for each square (X or O) and 9 squares. But most of them are impossible because you can reach a winning position before filling up the board. The total number is a lot smaller. Considering possible states (with each square being blank, X or O), there are 19683 possible states overall. So, not even doing one move per day.